Triggers as Healing Indicators, Not Warning Signs for Others

I think we might have taken trigger warnings too far. They were always about showing sensitivity and alerting people to the nature of sensitive material so that they could choose whether or not they wanted to be exposed to that. Makes sense, right?

But they kept evolving.

Trigger warnings have joined mental health labels as ways to escape ownership of our problems. Instead of taking responsibility for our healing and growth, we’ve started asking people to walk on eggshells around us. We get triggered, and we actually think it’s someone else’s fault.

If you’re starting to get offended, please breathe through it because you might be the very person who needs to read this. Some days, I’m that person. That’s how a lot of my work starts. I say the thing I need to tell myself. I write my own reminder.

Triggers are actually healing indicators, not warning signs to others. Just as our cars have alerts to let us know they need gas or oil, our body has an excellent emergency alert system. Triggers help us identify the areas we still need to address and heal. Knowing what they are and what they do is for us — it’s never been for anyone else.

Of course, it’s important for our partners and the people closest to us to be aware of our triggers. We all have them. Usually, they pop up in the form of overreactions. When we catastrophize a small thing, there’s often a little trigger buried somewhere in the experience.

But once we’ve identified that trigger, it becomes our job to address it. This part can be difficult to face. We want the people who love us to be sensitive, but that sensitivity shouldn’t involve walking on eggshells all the time in hopes that we aren’t set off by something they inadvertently did. I’m not talking about disrespect or abusive behavior; I’m talking about expecting someone to make our trigger a thing they tiptoe around rather than putting in the time to heal that area ourselves.

I compare this to mental health because I saw this a lot when I worked as a therapist. Some clients would get a handy label and use it as a warning sign. Bipolar, ADHD, depression, anxiety — it didn’t matter what the label was; there was always a client who wanted to use it to explain away poor choices and behaviors without ever attempting to address any of them. “It’s just the way I am.”

But is it?

Something we do isn’t the same thing as who we are. Personality may be fixed, but behaviors can be changed — with consistent time and effort. Too many people want to take a pill and/or show up in therapy without ever actually doing the work. While medication may be a necessary part of treatment, it was never meant to be the whole of it, and therapy is useless if we don’t put in the work outside our sessions.

Owning a label to absolve ourselves of responsibility looks a lot like what we’ve done with trigger warnings. If something is triggering for us, we get mad at that thing rather than seeing this as an actually helpful experience. For instance, I get triggered sometimes in my relationship by mood changes. This isn’t news to my partner; we’ve talked about it. My last relationship was abusive — of the emotional variety. So, a small mood change triggers my own hypervigilance. I brace myself and experience all the physical symptoms I once experienced under abusive conditions.

A few months ago, before I realized just how active that trigger was, I made it my partner’s problem when I totally overreacted and made something personal that wasn’t. The details don’t matter. At this point, I don’t even remember what it was. I just remember how strongly I reacted, and it took a while to realize why. Eventually, I worked through it but not before I made it a relationship problem when it should have been a personal one.

Now, I’m more aware than ever of my triggers. I think I even use them to my advantage. When I get triggered, this is my body telling me that I’m not done with my healing. With some experiences, we’ll likely never be done. It doesn’t mean I make my partner walk carefully around my triggers, and it doesn’t mean that I make my personal triggers a problem for both of us. It does, however, mean that I stay aware, and when a trigger pops up for me, I talk about it openly and then deal with my feelings.

I’m learning to be more curious about my emotional experience. Much of that has come from my time reading Brene Brown’s work on vulnerability, shame, courage, and belonging. I’ve gotten better at recognizing my triggers for what they are, clearly communicating about my experiences, and then working to heal those areas.

What I’ve stopped doing is making my triggers everyone else’s problem to deal with. No one needs to tiptoe in my presence, and I don’t go full cancel-culture on everything that I find triggering. Instead, I’m reminding myself that being triggered is a notification from my mind and body to me. This still hurts. You might want to slap a Band-Aid on it or give it some fresh air, depending. It might need a little more of your time and a lot more of your healing.

Sometimes, I just need to own up to it. My last relationship ended with financial devastation as my then-partner absconded with a bunch of my money. It’s not a secret. I felt like a first-class idiot telling people, but it’s a part of my story now. But I was so busy dealing with recovering financially while taking care of my children that I didn’t tell the other part of the story — the one that involved intense emotional abuse over a period of time. Not to my children. Just to me.

I didn’t let that story have fresh air or sunlight because I was too busy processing the more practical considerations. But when I get triggered and it all comes rushing back, I realize that I may need to speak the words, to put the label of “abuse” on that experience and deal with it. To forgive myself for not knowing until I knew, to forgive myself for not leaving until I did, and to forgive myself for dragging my kids through that experience with me. The last one is still hard.

But the triggers that have come up have been helpful, and now I’m dealing with them. While I don’t appreciate the experience of being triggered, I do appreciate my body’s intuitive warning system that allows me to deal with things as needed. Triggers are where we locate wounds. They are valuable information.

Are we using them that way?

Or are we asking people to quietly tiptoe around us so that we’ll never be upset by them? Are we making our reactions to triggers our partner’s or friends’ responsibility?

Triggers, used incorrectly, create conflict. But if we see them as healing indicators, we can use them to create intimacy, build stronger relationships, and foster healing. It’s not a Get Out of Jail Free card that absolves us from the responsibility for our healing. It’s the path that will take us there — if, of course, we’re brave enough to take it.

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Previously published on medium

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